Abstract
This paper examines how the Renaissance poet and scholar Angelo Poliziano draws on Ovid's Tristia, Ibis, and Epistulae ex Ponto to shape his own experiences as a “poet of exile” during a six-month period of self-imposed absence from Florence in 1479–80. In four Latin epigrams, the Sylva in scabiem, and a lengthy letter of apology from the Gonzaga court in Mantua Poliziano appeals to his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici, to call him back to Florence. Poliziano’s appeals to Lorenzo invoke Ovid’s appeals from exile to the Roman emperor Augustus, who becomes in turn a model for a Renaissance ruler well aware of the importance of historical precedent. In appealing thus to his patron to have himself restored to Florence, Poliziano also lays claim to a powerful poetical exemplum in the figure of Ovid.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Branca, V. Poliziano e l'umanesimo della parola, Saggi 655 (Torino: Einaudi, 1983).
Branca, V. and M. P. Stocchi, edd. Angelo Poliziano: Miscellaneorum centuria secunda (Firenze: Alinari, 1972).
Claassen, J.-M. Displaced Persons: Literature of Exile from Cicero to Boethius (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
Del Lungo, I. Prose volgari inedite e poesie latine e greche edite e inedite di Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano (Firenze: Barbèra, 1867 [repr. in Maïer 1970–71, vol. 2]).
Fantazzi, C., ed. & trans. Angelo Poliziano, Silvae, I Tatti Renaissance Library 14 (Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, 2004).
Godman, P. FromPoliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine humanism in the high Renaissance (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998).
Greene, T.M. The Light in Troy. Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry, Elizabethan Club Series 7 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1982).
Hibbert, C. The House of Medici. Its Rise and Fall (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1975).
Hook, J. Lorenzo de' Medici: An Historical Biography (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984).
Kaser, M. Das römische Privatrecht. Vol. I: Das altromische, das vorkiasshche und klassische Recht, Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft III.3.1 (München: C.H. Beck, 19712).
Kenney, E. J., “Ovid.” Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) pp. 420–457.
Leuker, T. Angelo Poliziano. Dichter, Redner, Stratege. Eine Analyse der Fabula di Orpheo und ausgewählter lateinischer Werke des Florentiner Humanisten, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 98 (Stuttgart & Leipzig: Teubner, 1997).
Maïer, I. Ange Politien. La formation d'un poète humaniste, 1469–1480, Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance 81 (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1966).
—, ed. Politiani opera omnia 3 vols. (Torino: Bottega d'Erasmo 1970–1971).
Maltese, E. V. Manuale: Epitteto, Con la versione latina di Angelo Poliziano e il volgarizzamento di Giacomo Leopardi, I grandi libri garzanti 417 (Milano: Garzanti, 1990).
Martelli, M., “Nota a Poliziano, ‘Epigrammaton latinorum’ XXIX 3,” Interpres 3 (1980), pp. 270–281.
—, “Nota ad Angelo Poliziano, ‘Epigrammaton latinorum’ XXXIV e ad Ugolino Verino, ‘Epigrammaton’ II, 7 (con una postilla sull'ultimo sonetto del ‘Commento’ laurenziano),” Interpres 12 (1992), pp. 297–300 (repr. in: Martelli 1995, pp. 189–192).
— Angelo Poliziano. Storia e metastoria, Attraverso la storia 2 (Lecce: Conte, 1995).
McGowan, M. Religion, Law, and Poetics in Ovid's Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto (Diss. New York University, 2002).
Nagle, B. R. The Poetics of Exile: Program and polemic in the “Tristia” and “Epistulae ex Ponto” of Ovid, Collection Latomus 170 (Bruxelles: Latomus, 1980).
Orvieto, P., ed. and trans. Angelo Poliziano. Sylva in scabien (Roma: Salerno, 1989).
Perosa, A. Angeli Politiani Sylva in scabiem, Testi e documenti di letteratura e di lingua 11 (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1954).
Picotti, G.-B. “Tra il Poeta e il Lauro,” in: Id., Ricerche Umanistiche, Studi di lettere, storia e filosofia pubblicati dalla Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 24 (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1958, pp. 3–86. (orig. in Giornale Storico della letteratura italiana 65 [1915], pp. 263–303 and 66 [1915], pp. 52–110).
Séris, E. “Les images de Laurent de Médicis dans la lyrique latine d'Ange Politien: une poétique de la mémoire,” Latomus 60 (2001), pp. 709–725.
—, Les étoiles de Némésis: la rhétorique de la mémoire dans la poésie d'Ange Politien, 1454–1494, Travaux d'humanisme et Renaissance 35 (Genève: Droz, 2002).
Sowerby, R. “Early Humanist Failure with Homer (I),” and “Early Humanist Failure with Homer (II),” International Journal of the classical Tradition, 4 (1997–1998), pp. 37–63, and 165–194.
Syme, R. History in Ovid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Tateo, F. Lorenzo de' Medici e Angelo Poliziano (Bari: Laterza, 1972).
Tissoni Benvenuti, A. L'Orfeo del Poliziano. Con il testo critico dell'originale e delle successive forme teatrali, Medioevo e umanesimo 61 (Padova: Antenore, 1986).
Ullman, B. L. Colucii Salutati de laboribus Herculis, ser. Thesaurus Mundi (Zürich: Thesaurus Mundi, 1951).
Viti, P. Pico, Poliziano, e l'umanesimo di fine Quattrocento, Studi pichiani 2 (Firenze: Olschki, 1994).
—, “Su alcune poesie encomiastiche del Poliziano per Lorenzo il Magnifico,” in: Il Poliziano Latino, Atti del Seminario di Lecce—28 aprile 1994 ed. P. Viti (Lecce: Congedo, 1996), pp. 37–58.
Watson, A., ed. and trans., Latin text edited by T. Mommsen with the aid of P. Krueger The Digest of Justinian, 4 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985).
Williams, Gareth D. Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry, ser. Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
— The Curse of Exile: A Study of Ovid's Ibis, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary Volume 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Italian Studies at the Villa Spelman in Florence, Italy in April 2003
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McGowan, M. Ovid and Poliziano in exile. Int class trad 12, 25–45 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-005-0009-0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-005-0009-0